King Canute, attempting to teach his people a lesson regarding his abilities, supposedly went to the sea and commanded the tide to stop. Twelfth-century English historian Henry of Huntington wrote that Canute took his throne to the seashore, but the tide, “continuing to rise as usual dashed over his feet and legs without respect to his royal person.”

President Barack Obama’s naïve and error-riddled speech at Georgetown University on Tuesday clearly demonstrated that he is serious about trying to stop global climate change. However, like the tide, climate change is a natural event of such proportions that it is largely unaffected by human activities. Obama ignores that the “official climate science” on which he bases America’s climate and energy policies has been washed away by 17 years without global warming, despite atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) — the gas Obama blames for rising temperatures — continuing to increase primarily due to the emissions of China and India.

Unlike America’s hopelessly misguided president, the reasons behind Canute’s action were sensible. He wanted to reduce unrealistically elevated expectations of him. Canute’s goal was to show fawning courtiers that there were things over which he had no control. He knew the facts about tides. Sadly for our American friends, and indeed for the whole free world — which depends on a strong America — Obama lacks Canute’s humility and knowledge about nature. The president’s misunderstanding and his apparent disinterest in real climate science is leading the United States into an economic black hole from which it may take generations to recover.

Obama also seems oblivious to real-world economic evidence that the policy path on which he is setting the U.S. has already been tried and has failed in other countries. It is not surprising that when he launched his most recent climate change initiative last week in Berlin, the German public response was less than enthusiastic — they are already suffering the economic and energy consequences of “going green” in a hopeless attempt to stop climate change. Many Germans are also aware of the implications of the Climategate scandal, through which the corrupted science of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was exposed through leaked emails.

In foisting many of the same policies on America that have already failed in Europe, the president appears to be counting on U.S. media to continue to hide the significance of Climategate and the recent halt in planetary warming.

In telling Georgetown students on Tuesday that he doesn’t “have much patience for anyone who denies that this challenge is real,”Obama reveals his ignorance. Nobody is denying that climate change is “real” and that coping with such changes can be challenging. What skeptical scientists do question, however, is the degree to which human activity causes those changes. Saying that “ninety-seven percent of scientists” “acknowledged the planet is warming and human activity is contributing to it,” as Obama did in his speech, is both wrong and meaningless.

As ICSC policy advisor Lord Christopher Monckton just showed, the study that backs this claim is fatally flawed. First, science is never determined by a show of hands. If it were, the Earth would still be considered flat and the center of the universe and space travel impossible. Second, the only statistic that could be interesting would be the fraction of scientists who study the causes of climate change and support the idea that our CO2 emissions are causing serious climate problems. There has never been a reputable survey that asked experts this question.

As we have come to expect from this president on global warming and energy, yesterday’s presentation included many basic science mistakes and inappropriate cherry picking of data. For example, Obama’s assertions about abnormally high temperatures and the extent of Arctic sea ice melt are either meaningless or simply wrong. Last July, new average U.S. temperature records were set by one-fifth of a degree Fahrenheit. This is meaningless since the measurement uncertainty in most of the record is one-half degree Fahrenheit. Similarly, last July’s record temperature was not based on the highs of the day. A record was set merely because the nights were slightly less cool in July 2012 than those experienced in the 1930s. So, when the high and lows of the day were averaged, a record average was established. Nevertheless, the highs of the day in the 1930s still exceeded anything experienced in July 2012.

Obama also neglected to mention that Arctic sea ice coverage records began only three decades ago, when we first started to monitor the Arctic by satellite. Land-based measurements indicate that it was warmer in the Arctic in the 1930s and so ice melt was likely greater then as well, although no one knows for sure.

To Obama and his backers, EVERYTHING is about gaining even more POWER for himself and the entrenched government caste. To Obama and his "cadres", there is no such thing as a POLICY objective.

Everything is about the POLITICS of gaining more power. Talk of "climate change" is a means to unrelated and unstated POLITICAL aims.

Obama's speech was given at Georgetown, a left-wing cadre academy run by leftist Jesuits, NOT at MIT where students actually UNDERSTAND serious engineering issues.

Does anyone really believe that Obama personally KNOWS off-hand, e.g. the difference between kilowatt and kilowatt hours, or between uranium and thorium fuel cycles? Could Obama personally comment knowledgeably on the fundamental attributes of wind power versus solar power?

ALL of Obama's appeals and speeches are mere weapons in a larger war for more and permanent power - "the end justifies the means". Slogans such as "99%/1%" were professionally designed by Joseph Goebbels' modern disciples to serve the needs of single-minded, power-hungry "cadres".

Obama is more like Xerxes than Canute. When the first great double-pontoon brisge across the Hellespont was built by Xerxes engineers, a great storm came along and wrecked it. An enraged Xerxes had his soldiers flog the waters of the Hellespont to punish nature for having delayed his invasion plans. "Obviously," when the second bridge was completed and did not have a great storm to deal with, Xerxes had to conclude that his "punishment" of nature had worked.

Emperor Obama can "flog" nature all he wants, but nature will do what it will. It's flogging the rest of us with the resultant economic hardships and other unintended negative consequences that matter most.

PJM funded by "big energy". Prove it. Typical baseless libtard attack.Lord Monckton a "goofball" Yawn, Typical libtard ad hominem attack.Ask the Germans? We don't have to ask the Germans, they have told the rest of the world in many ways. Industries that rely on reliable electricity are considering relocating. The lower classes are indeed suffering under high energy costs. Germany is not all Mercedes' and BMW's. Like other countries they have their poor who cannot afford to heat their homes. Meanwhile, Europe has seen some brutally cold winters, even as the Earth is "warming". I know you have the answers for that too, the Gulf Stream has shifted, whatever. That explains Europe to your little mind, but here is something to make a good libtard's head explode! On June 19, Newsbusters ran a story about one of the Left's "royal family" members, a Kennedy, shooting poor baby seals! They and their cohorts are shooting them by the thousands! Oh, the humanity! But the larger question is, why are seals and polar bears flourishing when they should be dying under the searing hot Arctic sun?

This message was paid for by Big Oil AND the Koch Brothers! /sarc

I know the rest of you know it is sarc, but Bill probably thinks I'm serious!

Nice words. I'd be comvinced if I weren't already so. But, whom you expect to convince tis but a wasted effort because you see, it is not for what is best, even by a definition we could not agree yet still an attempt to attain what's best, that Obama and his allies do labor but the dissolution of the nation as we knew it. Pretty words, smart words are powerless.

I've personally seen weather stations whose data has been corrupted by their surroundings since they were installed. Our local wastewater treatment plant (sewage plants are a common location for collection of weather data) has one located about 15 feet from a blower building that was built after the station. The exhaust fan for the building is on the wall facing the weather station. That fan blows hot air all summer long.

The Wikipedia definition of alchemy is: "Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners' claims to profound powers were known from antiquity."

Global Warming/ climate change believers are the modern day incarnation of alchemists in that they believe they posses "profound powers" to make a perfect world. The difference is that alchemists didn't have access to the scientific knowledge that today's climate change believers have. Alchemy was an early form of science that eventually led to the scientific method. Global warming/ climate change believers are abandoning the scientific method and regressing intellectually.

It is unlikely that real scientists really believe this stuff but Obama and enough useful idiots who vote apparently do.

To Obama and his backers, EVERYTHING is about gaining even more POWER for himself and the entrenched government caste. To Obama and his "cadres", there is no such thing as a POLICY objective.

Everything is about the POLITICS of gaining more power. Talk of "climate change" is a means to unrelated and unstated POLITICAL aims.

Obama's speech was given at Georgetown, a left-wing cadre academy run by leftist Jesuits, NOT at MIT where students actually UNDERSTAND serious engineering issues.

Does anyone really believe that Obama personally KNOWS off-hand, e.g. the difference between kilowatt and kilowatt hours, or between uranium and thorium fuel cycles? Could Obama personally comment knowledgeably on the fundamental attributes of wind power versus solar power?

ALL of Obama's appeals and speeches are mere weapons in a larger war for more and permanent power - "the end justifies the means". Slogans such as "99%/1%" were professionally designed by Joseph Goebbels' modern disciples to serve the needs of single-minded, power-hungry "cadres".

But for reality, I might believe in global warming. Unfortunately, the reality is that Obama is trying his hardest to fundamentally change America into something in total conflict with our Constitution, a nation where the "commoners" answer to their betters and any concept of human rights is based on government decree.

Further, a claim of global warming plays right into his hands. What is to be gained by Obama in his push for more power based on the need to control global warming. The answer is more power. Power to be used in his agenda for America with a powerful central government that regulates the lives of the "commoners" based on the dictates of the elites.

I wasn't born yesterday. Actually, I was born and educated back prior to political correctness, dumbed down education and Leftist propaganda wing MS(?)M becoming what it is today. I can see clearly what has transpired over the past decades and what is happening today. Many things constitute pieces of a puzzle. Well, the puzzle is now sufficiently complete to see what it's about and it "ain't pretty" to say the least.

The old saying "Follow the money" still remains but we might add to it "Follow the power to be gained".

For anyone who's paying attention read David Mackay's SUSTAINABLE ENERGY -- WITHOUT THE HOT AIR (free at withouthotair.com). Though a warmist Mackay's also a physicist and quality of life in Britain can't be sustained by wind -- also need a lot of nuclear and coal. If a country roughly 1/6 the population of the US can't beat the laws of physics neither can we.

Who gave Obama unilateral power to enact climate and environmental policy? It is so tiresome to hear "...(EPA) still designates CO2 a “harmful substance” so as to allow greater bureaucratic control of industry under the Clean Air Act..." Who allows EPA to unilaterally designate anything?! Are my conservative congressmen impotent victims of an omnipotent regulatory agency?

If our Republican elected officials are so hellbent on passing laws - how about passing some to reign in the frigging EPA and its unsound, unscientific and disastrously unaccountable rule-making economy killers??

Obama's Flat- Earthers have the facts of Nature. Photosynthesis of green plants/trees using CO2 to convert it to foodstuff. A real non-deniable way to show Obama's false presentation of facts is to show the American people once and for all what else can be done for CO2- DRY ICE. If in late 1940's Manhattan Project scientists remarked (in book to boot) that there is a lot of CO2 in the atmosphere.If forests burn- CO2 concentrates on the spot (Brazil). It is high noon for Obama himself to abide by his dicta- let all federal offices-White House- Madame Obama's office rely on non-conventional electricity sources. In less than 3 hours they will shout 'Uncle'. The Arctic Ice melts/thickenings is caused by sea currents (think of old refrigerators with freezers how the ice accumulated- becoming white. Obama never lived by any sea either- which froze for the winter and how huge blocks of ice suddenly were floating in ice- cold water.

When I first saw the term Flat- Earthers I thought that it was referring to Obama and his absurd "science". Then I read further and saw that he was projecting his and his followers stupidity onto those who actually think.

The Apollo scientists and engineers maintained a rigid, scrupulously honest respect for reality in the service of their goal. But then, their goal was life and superlative human achievement. Reality, scrupulous honesty, and respect for reality are anathema to totalitarians. The authors and many others need to stop giving Obama the benefit of the doubt. His "mistakes" are not honest, nor are they mistakes in the sense of an innocent error which, once discovered, is quickly corrected, nor was his speech naive. Obama's policies are cynical, manipulative, and deliberately crafted to undermine and destroy everything about this country that made the Apollo program possible. The left's only goal is power, and no lie is too outrageous to achieve it, no body count too high. Leftism's record of the 20th century proves it. To quote a philosopher, "Mistakes of this size are not made innocently."

It would seem that to predict long term climate behavior on the basis of a few decades of data makes no more sense than trying to predict the long term course of the stock market by following a trend line of a couple of hours of the NYSE activity.